Recently, consumers have expressed significant interest in “place shifting” devices that allow viewing of television or other media content at locations other than their primary television set. Place shifting devices typically packetize media content that can be transmitted over a local or wide area network to a portable computer, mobile phone, personal digital assistant, remote television or other remote device capable of playing back the packetized media stream for the viewer. Placeshifting therefore allows consumers to view their media content from remote locations such as other rooms, hotels, offices, and/or any other locations where portable media player devices can gain access to a wireless or other communications network.
While placeshifting does greatly improve the convenience afforded to the viewer, there continue to be limitations in the usability of the placeshifting. For example, there are situations where a user may be unable to continuously view content of interest in a media stream, but may have specific desire to watch certain key portions of the media content. For example, to watch portions of certain live programming (e.g., sporting events). In these cases, traditional placeshifting may be unable to provide the flexibility needed for the user to view the desired media content.
It is therefore desirable to create systems and methods for selectively providing event updates to a user to facilitate viewing of key portions of media content, even when the user is unable to continuously monitor the media content. This and other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background section.